Tea party voice Bachmann won't seek re-election

2of2FILE - MAY 29: In a video posted on her website U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) announced she would not run for re-election for a term in the U.S. House May 29, 2013. WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 07: Presidential hopeful and incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition 2012 Presidential Candidates Forum December 7, 2011 at Ronald Reagan Building and International Center in Washington, DC. All the major Republican presidential candidates, except for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), will participate in the event. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)Photo: Alex Wong, Staff

WASHINGTON - Rep. Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican whose status as a leading voice of the tea party movement in Congress has faded in the wake of a failed presidential bid and a widening investigation into her campaign spending, said Wednesday that she would not seek re-election.

Bachmann, defiant as ever as she insisted that she would have won re-election had she tried, also said the legal inquiries had nothing to do with her decision. She vowed to continue to fight for the principles she said she holds dear: religious liberty, traditional marriage, family values and opposition to abortion.

"I fully anticipate the mainstream liberal media to put a detrimental spin on my decision not to seek a fifth term," she said in a video posted on her campaign website. "They always seemed to attempt to find a dishonest way to disparage me. But I take being the focus of their attention and disparagement as a true compliment of my public service effectiveness."

Bachmann spent heavily in her last congressional campaign and eked out a victory by less than 2 percentage points. She would have been one of the Democrats' top targets in the 2014 elections.

In addition to a tough fight for re-election, Bachmann also faces growing legal troubles. The Office of Congressional Ethics has been conducting its own review of Bachmann and her staff since early this year. That inquiry, first disclosed in March, is either near its conclusion or has already resulted in a recommendation for a formal investigation by the House Ethics Committee, given that there is a strict time limit of about 100 days for how long these preliminary investigations can go on

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported this month that the FBI was also conducting an inquiry, joining the Federal Election Commission and the Iowa Senate Ethics Committee on the growing list of investigative bodies examining her campaign activity.

Among the allegations Bachmann is facing is that her campaign improperly used money from an affiliated political action committee, MichelePAC, to pay a fundraising consultant who worked during the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

Top Democrats said they took her decision not as a sign that the influence of the tea party movement was on the wane in Congress - where a recent spate of controversies involving the Obama administration has emboldened Republicans - but as a reason to believe that the political right was only just getting revved up.

"Michele Bachmann is not retiring because she thinks her tea party views are out of touch. She's retiring because she's under investigation," said Rep. Steve Israel of New York, who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "What really concerns me now is the competition that will emerge in the House GOP to fill her shoes. That competition is going to pull House Republicans even further to the right of where they are now."